Animal Tale #1

The biggest betrayal

I wouldn’t define myself as a gullible person, but as a child, I used to believe (almost) everything my best friend told me. Especially when our friendship was at stake.

One hot summer night, my best friend and I decided to camp in her garden. After stripping the redcurrant bush completely bare, with red marks all over our hands and darkness around us, like criminals after a heist, we started confessing our crimes. I probably said something about stealing coins from my little sister’s piggy bank, or about the time my cousins and I zipped Anastasia into a tent and rolled her down a hill. My best friend told me about the time she jumped her neighbour’s fence.

Her neighbour was exactly the kind of character you'd expect in an American movie: a strange, lonely man with a red pickup and an alcohol addiction. He also owned a big, scary shepherd dog.

Back then, I thought that dog was the reason for the ridiculously high fence around his house. Now, I think he probably just wanted some privacy from us kids. I remember peeking through the gaps between the wooden planks, hoping to catch a glimpse of his scarred face. More clearly, I remember running away at the loud barking coming towards me.

So when my best friend told me she jumped that fence, I was shocked. But I was speechless when she told me what happened next.

Apparently, a split second after landing from her big jump, she locked eyes with the dog and after a long, intense stare, the dog ate her.

She said she couldn’t remember how long she was trapped inside him. Hours? Minutes? In the end, though, the dog decided to puke her out. 

In one piece.

I had so many questions. How was this possible? How did she climb the fence? Was she wet when she was puked out? What did her mum say when she saw her like that? Was it dark inside his belly?

I didn’t believe her. Of course I didn’t. But she kept repeating the story over and over, and then told me that if I didn’t believe her, we couldn’t be best friends anymore. Because best friends always believe each other.

So I did. I believed her. And for years, I was terrified of that dog.

To be fair, I also admired the kindness of that dog for puking her out without leaving so much as a scratch.

Years later, while I was retelling this story to some other friends, she confessed it had never happened. Worse, she claimed she never even said it and that I’d made the whole thing up.

Somehow, when I think back to that night now, what I remember the most isn’t her huge betrayal or her unbelievable ability to lie. What I remember most is our fight.

That night, while turning around in the tent in my sleep, I accidentally punched her boob. We were at that age where boobs were more like small bumps than actual boobs, but the pain from that punch was apparently way worse than being eaten alive by a kind, gentle dog.

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